Halloween in Athens 2009

Dec 2, 2009 by Joshua    1 Comment     Posted under: daily life

Note: This post originally had a number of pictures showing both my costume and the costumes of various others. The images have since been lost. I may seek to recover them in the future, but for the moment, they are left out.

In my post a few days before Halloween describing my reasons for going on hiatus for the month, I stated an intent to post about the festivities and about my efforts for National Novel Writing Month. The bad news is that despite being so busy that I couldn’t update about either thing, I must admit now that I did not come close to finishing a novel in November. The good news is that, though it’s been over a month since Halloween, I am now going to share with you what went down that night.

To start off, I take Halloween very seriously. Throughout the year, I am thinking up what sorts of costumes I could put together for the next October 31st. While I’m certainly not adept at tailoring or any related crafts, I prefer to make my costumes rather than purchase pre-made ones – though my creations are usually just a combination of items in an attempt to construct a particular look.

Click the jump for highlights of Halloween and a bit of costume history.

Last year, I went with the steampunk aesthetic. The only detail setting my costume apart from a simple Victorian England get-up was a pair of goggles made to look like they were constructed from metal and leather. I put them together from a pair of plastic welding goggles thanks to this handy Instructable, and I’m quite proud of how they turned out.

Thing is, I actually had two costumes in mind for last year’s Halloween. My initial plan was to dress up as No Face from Hayao Miyazaki’s “Spirited Away”, a movie that had a big impact on me when I first saw it. By the time the day rolled around, however, I wasn’t even finished with the mask, and I had no clue how to go about constructing the rest of the costume.

Well, this Halloween, I was determined to finish what I had started. I completed the mask, adding some more layers of Papier-mâché to get it rounded out and formed more clearly. I knew I would benefit from collecting all those student-produced newspapers! Then, using screen shots from the movie as reference materials, I mixed some acrylic paint and tried my best to match the colors on No Face’s, um, face. The colors look different in real life than they do in the image, and they don’t quite match the original, but given the amount of time and effort I put into it and my lack of experience prior, I’d say the mask turned out well.

I thought the hard part was over. This mask, it must be the most crucial part of the costume, right? But I was feeling ambitious. My plan was to somehow mount the mask above my head so that I would appear much taller. I wanted to re-create the same impact as this person’s costume, the head peering over top of the crowd that would flood the main street during Ohio University’s annual Halloween block party. Of course, I was not going to hold the mask in my hands the entire night, so I needed some way to mount it hands-free. Additionally, I wanted it to move with my own head, so that I could give the illusion of the face being real as it would turn to look the same way my own eyes were looking.

Fortunately for me, I had in my possession of odds and ends an old bike helmet, one that fit snugly on my head and was made of puncturable plastic. Additionally, I had purchased enough thin, black cloth to run over twice my height the year before. Now I just had to find a way to combine the disparate parts into a cohesive costume. After many frustrated hours with metal wiring, hot glue, black thread, duct tape and cardboard, I had something reasonable. Despite (accidentally) burning plastic with a cheap soldering iron and practicing my rather shoddy sewing skills, I had pulled everything together. With the addition of a black sorcerer’s gown and a couple pairs of black gloves, my costume was complete.

Standing behind me in the photo above are, of course, my friends Jeremy and Devin, dressed (respectively) as Bill and Zoey from the zombie shooter “Left 4 Dead”.

We hit the street and scoped out all the crazy costumes people came up with this year. One drawback I found to my costume, however, was the difficulty I faced in reaching the pockets underneath the sorcerer’s gown for crucial things such as my camera. As such, I didn’t take as many pictures as I had hoped. My maneuverability was also confounded by the gold-painted rocks I kept hidden between my two pairs of gloves. In “Spirited Away”, No Face produces fake gold out of thin air, cupping his hands as it manifests from out of his, er, skin. I thought it would be clever to emulate the action, so I cut slits in the palms of one pair of gloves and held the rocks wedged in the space between the gloves at my wrist. So, with a little bit of shaking and coaxing, I could “generate” gold from my hands. A neat touch, but it was a bit befuddling all the same.

The reception I got was great. Although many people did not know or recognize the character, many were startled or spooked by the size of the costume and the creepiness of the face. Those who did recognize No Face gave me kudos, including one guy who whispered “You complete me” all while making accompanying hand gestures. I was also asked by numerous Asian international students if I would pose for a photo with them. It became a running joke that any time a group of Asian-looking students passed nearby, my friends would tell me to turn in their direction.

Now, as I said at the beginning of this long post, I take Halloween very seriously. Just like last year, I had two costumes in mind this year. The main difference is that I managed to complete both costumes. And so, after a short break back at the house, I returned to the block party with my friends, but this time I wore a different outfit. To match my friends’ L4D-themed costumes, I got some cheap clothes, threw in some duct tape, face paint and fake blood, and dressed up as an L4D Hunter.

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